Apparently, The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Instructions: Look at the list and put an X after those you have read. Tag other book nerds.

 I am not tagging anyone. Do it if you wish. 
 I am marking the ones I have read (X) and also am currently(C) reading. 

Here we go. 

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (X )
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (X )
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (X)
4 Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling (X)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (X)
6 The Bible (X)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (X)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (X)
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ()
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (X)

Total so far: 9/10. 



11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (X)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (X)
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (X)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare ( ) most of his plays, not all of the poems)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (X)
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (X)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ( )
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (X)
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger ( )
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot (X)

Total so far: 16/20

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (X)
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (X)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens (X)
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (X)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (X)
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (X)
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (X)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (X)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (X)

Total so far: 26/30

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (X)
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (X)
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (X)
34 Emma - Jane Austen (X)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (X)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (X)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini ( )
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (X)
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden ( )
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (X)

Total so far: 34/40

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (X)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (X) 
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (X)
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving (X)
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (X)
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (X)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy X)
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (X)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (X)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan ( )

Total so far: 43/50

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (X)
52 Dune - Frank Herbert X)
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons ( )
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (X)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ( )
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ( )
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (X) 
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (X)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon (X)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (X)

Total so far: 50/60

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (X)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (X)
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt ( ) 
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (X)
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (X)
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac (X)
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy (X)
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (X)
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie ()
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville (X)

Total so far: 58/70

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (X)
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker (X) 
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (X)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ( )
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (X)
76 The Inferno – Dante Alighieri (X)
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ( )
78 Germinal - Emile Zola ( )
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (X)
80 Possession - AS Byatt ( )

Total so far: 64/80

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (X)
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ( )
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker (X)
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (X)
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (X)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ( )
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (X)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom ()
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (X)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ( )

Total so far: 70/90

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (X)
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (X)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ( )
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (X)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole (X)
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute (X)
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (X)
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (X)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (X)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (X)

Total 79/100

Well, this is more than 6, but not as many as I'd hoped it would turn out!  Remember: I'm a  sextagenerian! (oooooh, I've been waiting for a chance to use that term :D

 Laconia NH, if not all of New England, had 48 days of rain the past month.  But, somehow, the annual Motorcycle Week went on as scheduled (third week of June) with very few events cancelled.  Surprising how many attended, coming from all over the country, given the poor weather. I'm told this weather is practically a tradition after several years in a row of it. 

The end of Bike Week (rain all that week seems to be a tradition) was the start of my timeshare week in Western MA. Daughter-in-law, (ellyssian is my son), 11.5 old grand-daughter, R, and nearly 5 year old Mr. B were with me for the week. It rained every day, with a few hours sun in the mornings  which allowed pool fun.  

By the time the week ended, we'd visited the Norman Rockwell Museum with its very good kid's activity room as well as most if not all his work, played miniature golf in the rain, swam as often as we could, watched a few movies at the resort's theater,  won some prizes in the arcade games room and played our version of charades.  D and Mr. B left Thursday; R. and I waited till Friday to leave, going first to my younger sister's house, a few hours away, for an overnight, returning to NH Sat.  morn.   

Mon. R & I prepared a 37th birthday lunch for my younger son -- with his favorite birthday cake. Once upon a time, I used to make train cakes, truck cakes, tiger and bear cakes and for his 10th b'day, a "make peace not war" cake by request, but now he got a traditional store bought... oh well - I doubt I could have made a Harley Davison bike anyways.  Dan works 3rd shift, so lunchtime is dinner time. R offered to make garlic mashed potatoes to go with the  ham steaks and sweet corn. She did an excellent job, from peeling to cutting to browning the fresh garlic like a pro.

Tues., was a 125 mile trip to Boston for my eye exam appt. early that afternoon. Because driving 's not a good idea after eye dilations so we stayed over.  Dinner, at nearby Whole Foods Market, (huge emporium of environmentally safe-raised foods and other products of all sorts and a wonderful cafeteria with a seemingly endless selection of near everything) and R chose tuna salad "NOT,"she said, "on bread!"; I opted for a marvelous brisket roasted in a peach sauce... who knew brisket could be so scrumptious?  The inn is near Government Center and the Beacon Hill neighborhood where I had my first apt, (or, hovel, as my Dad  called it and wouldn't bring my Mom to see it), a small studio on the "wrong" side of the Hill and as full of students and ancients now as in 1964 -- the"right" side (read: wealthy) of the Hill starts at the top and down to Boston Common and Public Garden. We decided to walk up it to see my old building. I'd forgotten how steep and long the that Hill is, but finally we made it to the correct cross street only to learn I couldn't be sure which old brick building it was! They all looked alike and been modernized.   

At the bottom of the Hill's neutral western side is Charles Street, an historic street filled with many genuine antique stores.   Sadly, the shop where my husband bought our beautiful, sharp mother-of pearl handled French steak knives now close to 150 years old, is gone replaced by a real estate office. We walked down one side and up the other, finally finding a shop with a book for R. I recalled there used to be several books shops, but, alas, not any more.  

 All this while, it was getting very foggy and chilly. after eating, we were happy to return to the 8th floor room and check on the fog's development through the window.  Within a few hours we could no longer see the tops of tall next-door  Mass General Hospital buildings, nor the laser-warning-to-airplanes-light atop a crane atop another building.  Thankfully, it lifted overnight, so our return drive was fine if wet.

ellyssian and 17yr old J were driving up Thurs,  so we planned a menu and went to the market ... later we read and watched one of R's dvds, "Totoro" which was pretty good.  Besides raining, it  was still chilly as well and we didn't do much more than read.   R was happy to also have uninterrupted computer time.  We were happy even though not doing much' of course, we chattered a lot!  The guys  arrived late, after a long drive due to a big traffic delay in CT.
 
Friday we lazed a bit,  going to a fish and chip spot for lunch then, after trying out for NH's Stone Henge type attraction -- but traffic proved too heavy (Laconia is a vacation destination), instead we decided to go to  -- want to guess? --  a bookstore, one of my favorites in Meredith, a town 12-15 miles away.  The last time I was there, a few authors were around, signing books, but today was just ordinary...    Later, R helped me prepare my version of noodles Alfredo-- she is pretty adept in the kitchen,  a grand sous-chef and so dinner was delicious.   

Sat., younger son and his lady friend came over for an indoor 4th of July BBQ (no outdoor grills at the condo).  It was excellent.  The night before, ellyssian told me how to prepare the rump roast for long slow cooking. Arrrgh-- I'd have to get up real early to get it going, but okay, I'd do it. So come 6:31a.m. (gotta love these digital clocks: no more "about" "almost " or "close to" hours!), I got up, groggily opened the fridge and NO RUMP ROAST!  Surprised, I found it, all cubed and simmering away in the large crockpot.  I went back to bed thankful  ellyssian had gotten up earlier and got it cooking. Need I tell you it was delicious, fork tender and just perfect? Everything ellyssian cooks (unless it's too spicy hot for me) is soooo good.  

Speaking of "too spicy hot for me," R & I went to market at the time share too. There, above the sweet red peppers, were small scrunched up orange peppers, the likes of which I'd never seen before;  deciding to taste one (I'd read of small sweet orange peppers a short while before), I bit into it just as R said, "NO!"   Too late. OMG, I thought I'd burn my head off -- I do not like  this, no siree!  R says, "It's a habenero pepper; I told you not to" and moves away giggling as I grab some grapes which help as long as they're in my mouth, but no good at all if swallowed. I ate about a 1/2 pound of them to little effect.  I grabbed some nearby peapods. They worked! 2 handfuls later, I was near normal.  There has been one aftereffect due to last awhile: I've another entry in the family stupid doings history -- on all sides; you know how fast those stories travel!   Thankfully, ellyssian's BBQ beef was not hot (except for temperature) and perfect with rice pilaf and salad. 

Later R and I walked the 2 blocks to town hall for the band concert followed by fireworks off the top of the town parking garage.  We wanted to be where the crowd was; the others stayed preferred the condo parking  lot (as I said, only 2 blocks from the official site) to watch in comfort.  The usual spot is several blocks away at  Lake Opechee Park,  but ongoing construction there made the area unsafe for a large group. The fireworks  set off at 9:30, after a local band's rock concert (excellent).  We were back inside in time to watch the televised Boston Pops display at 10:30. 

Sadly for me, this morning, ellyssian and his family began their trek southward and home to PA,  the trail of which went from NH's White Mtn foothills through VT's Green Mtn Forest and MA's uncolorful Berkshire Mtns and CT's non-mountains before reaching their very own Pocono Mtns.  It was so quiet, too quiet and all the tasks got done too quickly. They called about 6:30 pm, to tell me they were safely home. I'll see them again come the fall.  

Happy summertime to all. 
 

 









 

 1. You can ONLY answer 'Yes' or 'No'.

 This also happened Thursday -- in the medical building's parking garage.  

On entering the parking garage, I stopped to grab the time-ticket on which charges are based.  Since I was not quite close enough to the machine, I put the car in park so I could open the door to get the card. Got it,  put gear in Drive and took my foot off the brake: didn't move and all dash symbols lit up. Repeated the process -- 2 more times. Cars are lining up and beeping -- arrgggghhh -- as my family would tell you: for me, not a strange happening at all -- I rolled down the window, stuck my head out, and hollered, "Does anybody understand dashboard? Help, please." In the meantime, the line behind me was growing. After 2 more hollers out, a young gentleman sauntered over, looked inside and, laughing gently, turned off the cruise control.At least no guffaws, a more common result.  Problem #1 solved.   

Now to find a parking slot in a large garage that's always near full. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes to find a space. But not today; today I got one in about 2 minutes, but it was marked for compact cars. However, I wasn't sure my car was one (we'd had full-size or vans for the last 15 years). However, an elderly gentleman assured me my Accord IS a compact and so I parked there and put the ticket in my purse as I exited the car. Well, I thought I'd put it in my purse. 

2.5 hours later, as I left the building, I searched my bag for the ticket. Not there. Not in my pants' pockets. Not in the car nor on the floor next to the car.  Nowhere to be found. Crap! It would cost me a full day's fee. $22.00 for 2.5 hours was bad enough; twice that  + $6.00 more? Beyond bad.  When I reached the attendant, I explained that I'd arrived at 12:30 plus/minus a few minutes, parked in space #98 and found I'd lost the ticket.  She asked again when did I arrive, then said someone dropped off a ticket they'd found near that space stamped 12:34.  Must be mine! Problem #2 solved.

What are the odds, given the amount of time and the amount of garage traffic at a very large medical building, that the ticket would not only be found but also left with the attendant?

This, while not mystical like, say a unicorn as I'd have liked to imagine, is spot on. And you know how geese are noisy, err-- loquacious?  even though not mentioned below?  Well...     

Your Animal is the Goose

You are are a resourceful person who needs a lot of stability in life. You rather save for a rainy day, even if it means on missing out on fun impulses. When you feel secure, you are incredibly creative and artistic. You are also very witty. You like to invest in yourself and for the future. You like to always be learning and gaining skills.

   

 Why, when I attempt to click on the words "post" or "friends page" etc., does this silly unwanted white box* come popping out at me, doesn't want to disappear and gives several choices akin to and including what I was after  which I would need to click on again in order to get.  I simply want what I've clicked on; if I wanted any of the other choices, I'd find them on my own.   

* sometimes it says "snap", sometimes it shows a miniature page with several topics; they do not want to disappear and are very annoying.

Sadly, I didn't get the little bit copied that explains how to get to the meme site.  I thought I copied it all, yet... and this is not the first time it happened. Some things just confuse me and, sort of like right and left directions.  Sorry. I worked on it for nearly 30 minutes and that's time enough.  The meme is from: "blogthings" and  also given was "RSS Feed". 
Some day this stuff will come easy but it takes  me so long  that I become frustrated and...   Sigh and bigger SIGH.


              What Metal Are You?

 



<table width=350 align=center border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=2><tr><td bgcolor="#EEEEEE" align=center> <font face="Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif" style='color:black; font-size: 14pt;'> <strong>You Are Gold</strong> </font></td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> <center><img src="http://www.blogthingsimages.com/whatmetalareyouquiz/gold.jpg" height="100" width="100"></center> <font color="#000000"> You are almost universally admired. People strive to be like you.<br /> You are also highly valued. Your friendship, approval, and advice are all considered priceless.<br /> <br /> You live an inspiring, fortunate life. Not many people are as lucky as you are.<br /> But you haven't gotten to where you are on luck alone. You are incredibly competitive and ambitious. </font></td></tr></table> <div align="center"><a href="http://www.blogthings.com/whatmetalareyouquiz/">What Metal Are You?</a></div>

 Hippy birdie 2 ewes,  Hippie birdie 2 ewes, ... if I could draw on this screen or knew where and how to set up all those neat pictures, etc, I would do so... but I don't, so you are stuck with this simple wish:

May this year be better than the past but only a harbinger of the years to come.

Happy birthday, 
Patrixa